


Heroes

by TeaRoses



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to a request for "Older Harry and Draco."  Written in 2005 and not compliant with later canon, but I still kind of like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes

_We could steal time, just for one day   
We can be heroes, for ever and ever   
What d'you say?_

_\--David Bowie_

 

Harry sat at the corner table of the café in Diagon Alley. Some things changed little, and this was one. The tables were still covered in dusty green cloths, the waitresses might be different witches but still took forever to come to the tables and chatted forever when they did. It was just past the middle of the day and there were only a few customers.

He looked at the menu through his glasses, which were now much thicker. His graying hair was as shaggy as ever, as odd as that looked at his age. It wouldn't grow any other way. Besides, this way it often covered the scar which was faded but still present. He had never, even after saving the wizarding world at least twice, become used to being famous.

After a long period of staring at the menu and playing with animated salt shakers he finally saw his lunch partner enter. Tall, blonde, and graying at the temples himself, he was as handsome man now as he had ever been. Harry watched as he crossed the room and sat down.

"Harry," he said. "So you decided to show up after all."

"I miss one lunch in fifty years, Draco, and I've still never heard the end of it."

"I just want a chance to talk, Harry, surely you won't deny me that," said Draco.

Harry laughed. "You live with me, Draco, unless you've stomped off in a huff again. If you were ever home, we'd have plenty of chances to talk."

Draco glared. "Fine. Shall we discuss your refusal to allow us to keep a house-elf instead?"

"I see I'm in for the weekly whinge. You called me away from the Ministry for this?

"Well excuse me for not having as important and prestigious a job as yourself."

"You don't have any job at all, Draco, except when Snape needs potions research."

"Yes, I exist simply to make Harry Potter's life miserable."

"Exactly," said Harry, grinning. "It's one of those universal constants."

"Can we get back to the subject at hand?"

"We're not rich enough for a house-elf. If you'd lower yourself to picking up your own dirty clothes, we'd have less of a problem."

Draco snorted and began to look at the menu. "It's not just the cleaning; it's the cooking too. I've never grown used to cooking, Harry."

"Is that why you keep moving out?"

"I hardly ever do that anymore," retorted Draco. "And I always come back."

"You could learn to cook you know, Draco. All it takes is the ingredients and few simple spells. I remember watching Mrs. Weasley --"

"Don't you dare compare me to that woman. I am nothing like her and she is nothing like me."

"You're both purebloods."

"That's not amusing, Potter."

"Oh, it's Potter, now, is it? All because I challenged you to do a few household tasks? I know it wasn't the way you were brought up."

"Don't you dare go speaking of the way I was brought up. Not now, after all I lost for you."

"After all these years you still can't stand to talk about it? And it wasn't for me."

"My father was in Azkaban and I had to choose between you and Voldemort," said Draco, no longer hesitating over the name. "You were considerably more attractive."

They paused for the waitress.

"You still won't admit you wanted to do the right thing, Draco."

"And you still won't admit that right and wrong aren't as simple as you would like," he replied.

"You didn't even speak to me until years after war," protested Harry.

"What was I supposed to say? 'Despite the fact that you and your friends destroyed my family and my entire way of life, I rather fancy you?'"

"You did help the Order in the end."

"Then it was your job to speak to me, wasn't it, Harry?"

"You wanted a medal? You were in it for the glory after all?" Harry said in a light tone.

"You wound me, Potter."

"Things did change. Including us. Would you have kissed me, back at Hogwarts?"

"No," answered Draco. "I could never have done that. And when my father went to the Dementors, I knew something had changed, and in the end… I wasn't a Death Eater. And I went behind the lines delivering potions for Snape. But I don't want a medal just for not being on the other side."

"You were one of the best in the school. If you had gone to them--"

"Then my mother might not be in Azkaban also, and the world would be a different one, with people like me at the top. And I wouldn't be watching a Muggle-born become the Minister of Magic, Durmstrang handing out letters the way Hogwarts does, and Hermione Granger's children running the Society for Distressed Gentlewizards."

"But you'd be all alone," said Harry.

"Instead of living under your generous protection."

"You live with me because I make sure your family connections don't come back to haunt you? This many years after the war?"

Draco shook his head. "I live with you because you're a good shag."

Harry laughed. "Well I am that."

The waitress finally ambled over with tea and biscuits. As Draco was muttering that he would finally get something decent to eat, Harry began staring intently into his eyes.

"You look the same age as me, Draco. Just like you did when we were at Hogwarts."

Draco nibbled at a biscuit. "What the hell are you on about? I am the same age as you."

"Purebloods age more slowly… I remember when Dumbledore told me that to this day."

He shrugged. "Well, that's no secret. But you're not a Muggle-born yourself."

"Something's off," persisted Harry.

"Perhaps I want the dignified old age my father didn't get," Draco turned his head away, no longer looking Harry in the eye. Almost silently, he added, "Or perhaps I just want to keep you company."


End file.
